Today the U.S. business community announced the formation of the Coalition for Green Trade, composed of a broad range of associations and companies doing business in the United States who seek to remove barriers to global trade in environmental technologies.

The purpose of the Coalition is to educate policymakers and the public on the importance of lowering trade barriers to environmental technologies, and to advocate for the timely negotiation of an ambitious Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA) under the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Coalition is co-chaired by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), and the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), and composed of a steering committee that also includes the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Coalition of Service Industries, Emergency Committee for American Trade, Information Technology Industry Council, Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Semiconductor Industry Association, Solar Energy Industries Association, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"It is critical that the EGA negotiations substantially broaden the list of 54 goods agreed upon by the APEC forum in 2012 in order to more accurately reflect the substantial breadth and significant growth in the green goods sector," said Jessica Lemos, director of international trade policy at the NAM. "The NAM looks forward to working with our U.S. and foreign negotiators and businesses toward a strong result that will grow this sector, manufacturing and jobs." "EGA is important in its own right, and can also act as a stepping stone to lower tariffs in other sectors and value chains associated with environmental technologies," said Eva Hampl, Director, Investment, Trade and Financial Services at USCIB. "A high-quality agreement would advance global innovation and be flexible to permit new entrants and commitments to keep pace with new technologies."

The first round of EGA talks are scheduled to begin this week in Geneva. Representatives from NAM, NFTC and USCIB are leading a U.S. business delegation to participate in events and meetings on the sidelines of the official negotiations.

"Negotiators have an opportunity to produce a meaningful agreement that is good for economic development and for the environment," said Jake Colvin, Vice President for Global Trade Issues at NFTC. "It's also a chance to demonstrate that the WTO can be nimble, and can address emerging concerns of interest to global business and development communities."

All of the steering committee members of the coalition joined business associations from around the world to release a global industry letter in support of the EGA initiative.

For more information contact:Nicole L'Esperance, the Fratelli Group, for NFTC: nlesperance@fratelli.com or 202-822-9491Jamie Hennigan, for NAM, at jhennigan@nam.org or 202.637.3090Jonathan Hueneke, for USCIB: jhueneke@uscib.org, or 202-703-5043